Keep Lombardi Incident Separate From Any `Fixing' Of Regent System

January 27, 1998

For 33 years, Florida's state universities have been governed by a Board of Regents and a chancellor who carries out the board's policies. The system has worked well, and Florida achieved a strong reputation nationally for a well-managed university system.

It would be harmful to tamper with that system for no good reason. A fit of anger about the possible firing of University of Florida President John Lombardi emphatically does not qualify as an acceptable reason.

If legislators wish to consider changing the university governance system, let them study it carefully, solicit the advice of experts, obtain the widest possible public input and then act soberly and wisely. Right now, a group of hotheaded legislators is shooting wildly as they threaten to weaken or dismantle the university system.

It's a blatant misuse of legislative power. State Sen. John Grant has filed a bill that would reduce the terms of regents from six years to two years and make the appointment of chancellor subject to Senate confirmation.

This bald threat to the regents, who meet today and are scheduled for a final vote on Lombardi's future, represents legislative bullying at its worst. Even more appalling are drastic suggestions to abolish the regents and substitute individual boards to run each of the 10 state universities.

Perhaps the current governance system ought to be decentralized to a degree, or otherwise modified _ or perhaps not _ but such important decisions never should be made in haste and furious anger. At least one calm voice of reason and caution is being heard in the Florida Legislature, as Rep. Bob Casey cautioned about making too many changes too fast.

A Gainesville Republican who chairs the House Colleges and Universities Committee, Casey opposes forcing the university chancellor to go through a Senate confirmation after being hired by the regents. Sensibly and fairly, Casey said the new chancellor, Adam Herbert, should be given a chance to do his job before any big changes are made.

Today's public vote by the regents, assuming it is held as scheduled, has turned into more than a question of Lombardi's future. It has become a test of the university system's relative independence from political meddling.

The vote has become sort of a three-way pressure game. Regents are pressing Lombardi to resign as president and take a teaching job because he called Herbert, who is black, an ``Oreo,'' and because he has evaded the line of authority in dealing with the Legislature.

A group of legislators is leaning on the regents to keep Lombardi. More subtly, Herbert has suggested he might quit as chancellor if Lombardi is given more power than any other university president.

What a mess. The regents would demonstrate their independence by voting as their individual consciences dictate, and if it means Lombardi is gone, that will allow UF to calm down and move on under new leadership.

Whatever the result today, every legislator with a grain of sense ought to prevent wholesale retribution by furious colleagues. The state's university governance system continues to be a success, overall, and shouldn't be ripped apart in blind anger.